Brands and Hollywood are back in bed together

During this year Oscars, advertisers dramatically increased the numberof celebrity endorsements – by 500% over last year’s show (24% of 2011ads featured celebrity endorsements), according to the GreenLight AdGauge of the 83rd Annual Academy Awards show.

The annualreport analyzes TV advertising during the Academy Awards – also knownas the Oscars – as a barometer to identify trends in how brands areusing celebrities and licensed music in their TV commercials.

While some stars were fortunate enough to win an award onstage at thisyear’s Oscars, dozens of others reigned supreme offstage during thecommercial breaks of the live telecast, cashing in on endorsements forbrands like JCPenney (Cindy Crawford), Diet Coke (Temper Trap), Nokia(Daniel Johnson and Brie Stoner) and Hyundai (Jeff Bridges and JasonBateman).

Oneout of every three ads in this year’s show featured a celebrityendorsement or licensed music, according to the GreenLight Ad Gauge ofthe 83rd annual Academy Awards. And while the night’s ads had a 500%increase in celebrity endorsements over last year, GreenLight expertsfound that brands integrated celebrities into their TV commercials inmore simple and understated ways to avoid competing with what isgenerally the most star-packed awards show on the planet.

“Brandsand Hollywood are back in bed after the recession, but they are goingabout it in noticeably simpler and more understated way,” said DavidReeder, VP, GreenLight. “With so many stars featured during the showitself, brands decided not to try to compete and focused on more subtleintegrations like voiceovers and existing footage of celebs rather thanbombastic endorsements.”

Thirty-second spots during the Oscarsreportedly sold out a month before the show and cost $1.7 million, upfrom $1.5 million in 2010. About 41.3 million people in the UnitedStates watched the Oscars ceremony in 2010, a 14 percent increase fromthe year before.